


The Niff Spy Needs to Die

by zephakitara



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephakitara/pseuds/zephakitara
Summary: Everyone has a dark side, Cor knows this. He shouldn't be surprised at the horrible things people do. But at the moment, he is, as he stares at the boy sitting with him in the interrogation room.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	The Niff Spy Needs to Die

Crumpled school shirt. Loose tie around the neck. Dishevelled, messy hair covering downcast eyes.

He looked like any normal school boy in Insomnia.

Except that his white shirt was stained red, his bloodied hands in cuffs, placed unmoving on top of the table.

The interrogation room was cold and quiet, and Cor wished he was anywhere else but here.

He tried not to think about it, about the reason why he was in this room. It was not… right. Things like this shouldn’t have happened. And looking at the boy now, he just wished he was someone else.

Maybe it was better for him to not think of the boy as who he actually was. Maybe he should just pretend he was just some kid picked out off the streets.

Cor shifted in his seat. He had been sitting in the hard metal chair for almost half an hour, watching the boy opposite him staring blankly back at him.

The boy hadn’t said a single thing, but maybe that was because Cor hadn’t said or asked him anything since he’d stepped into the room.

He should have asked the obvious questions right away the moment he sat opposite the boy at the table, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

He couldn’t even let himself believe what had taken place tonight.

This boy was not someone he didn’t know. He was not just some stranger he could coldly ask about their crimes.

He knew this boy. He was someone he’d been watching for years. He knew where he came from, his background, his life. _Gods_ , he’d even held him as a baby.

He never thought the boy was capable of doing this.

There was a couple of light knocks coming from the two-way mirror to his left. Cor glanced at it, seeing his own strained face looking back at him.

That was no doubt Clarus knocking from the observation room, urging him to hurry the hell up.

Of course. He’d been stalling for far too long now. He couldn’t go on staring at the boy and expecting to get any answers.

Cor closed his tired eyes briefly. He rubbed his face and let out a sigh.

‘It’s time to do some talking now,’ he said grimly, almost to himself.

The boy blinked at the sound of his voice, his glazed blue eyes slowly coming back to life, like he was only now aware that Cor was there with him in the room.

‘You know why you’re here, right?’ Cor asked, his voice turning a little mellow.

A kid. The person in cuffs and covered in blood in front of him was just a kid. A kid that he knew. And yet, knowing what he’d done…

The boy looked away from him and nodded.

Cor leaned forward slightly, his hands clasped together.

‘You _know_ what you did, right?’

The boy’s brow furrowed, as if offended that Cor didn’t believe him.

‘Yes, I do. I killed a person.’

Cor stared at him, horrified at how nonchalant the boy sounded confessing to a murder.

‘He was not just a person. He was someone important to you,’ Cor said evenly. ‘He was your _friend_.’

The boy didn’t say anything. He just stared at his bloody hands, his fingers twitching. After a while, the boy spoke.

‘He wasn’t a friend.’

Cor leaned back in his seat, not sure he was hearing right.

‘I’m sure he was. From the weekly reports I get, you spent hours with him playing at the arcade every other day. You spent your weekends watching movies and hanging out at each other’s place playing video games. He was the only person you were close with at school.’

‘An act,’ the boy said softly, pulling his cuffed hands away from the table onto his lap. ‘That was all an act. I had to pretend to like him in order to get close to him and do what I had to do.’

‘And what you had to do was…?’

The boy shrugged but Cor saw the tenacity in his eyes.

‘To kill him.’

Cor breathed in deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘Why? Why did you have to kill him?’

The boy turned to look at him sharply, his eyes glinting.

‘Marshal, I’m sure you know how important it is to keep your homeland safe. If you were me, you would’ve done the same.’ 

Cor leaned forward again, feeling a little exasperated.

‘I don’t understand. What did he do? He wasn’t a threat to you.’

The boy shook his head.

‘He was, Marshal. He was a threat to my homeland.’

‘Wha–? How was he a threat?’

‘He was dangerous.’

‘ _Dangerous_? Come on, now. How–’

‘He was a damn Niff spy!’

Cor stared at the boy, his eyes wide. ‘What?’

‘He was a spy. From Niflheim,’ the boy said, his voice turning quiet.

‘That’s not true. He was just a normal kid,’ Cor said hoarsely.

This was bizarre. He didn’t expect for that to be the reason. He thought maybe it was because of a misunderstanding, a stupid fight that got out of hand. But a spy?

‘I saw it, Marshal. That MT barcode tattoo on his right wrist. I saw it by accident some time after we supposedly became friends. I was wary of him after that. I knew what he was trying to do, getting close to me, watching whatever I was doing, taking pictures, spying on me. But I was one step ahead of him. I pretended to be oblivious but I knew what he was and what he was up to. I wasn’t going to let him hurt me or my people. I wasn’t going to let the Niflheim Empire wreak havoc in Insomnia.’

Cor stared at the boy, ignoring the unmasked hatred on his face.

The MT barcode tattoos. He was sure knowledge about those barcodes wasn’t common around Insomnia. Not many people knew about them. But how did the prince–

Cor closed his eyes again, wishing for the hundredth time that all this was just a nightmare. He couldn’t pretend anymore. He couldn’t pretend that the boy in front of him was just a random kid turned killer.

‘Your Highness, we did checks on his background the moment he became close to you. Yes, he was from Niflheim, but Prompto Argentum wasn’t a threat _nor_ a spy, that much I can assure you. He was just a normal kid.’

‘I’m sure you and your men are competent at what you do, Marshal, but you could have overlooked things. Prompto was a property of the Niflheim Empire. That MT barcode was proof enough. I was appalled when you told me he was clear of any suspicions, that you’d let him near me. But then I realized you might not know about the barcode.’ The boy looked at him through narrowed eyes suddenly. ‘Or maybe you were in league with him.’

‘What?’

Cor couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘I decided to take care of things myself then, seeing how you have already declared him as safe.’

‘Your Highness, you shouldn’t have–’

Cor cursed and stopped talking. This whole thing shouldn’t have happened.

There was a pained look on his face as he caught the prince’s gaze. ‘Noctis, listen to me. Prompto was not a property of the empire. He was not a spy in any way. He was a Lucian, like you and me. He was just a kid who wanted to be friends with you.’

Noctis stared at him, his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding. ‘You can’t know that for sure. Why are you lying to me, Marshal? Why are you defending an enemy?’ he hissed, but there was a waver in his voice.

‘I’m not defending any enemies and I’m not lying to you, Your Highness. I’m saying the truth.’

‘You don’t know the truth.’

‘I _do_ know. Look, Noctis,’ Cor said and then paused, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘I was the one who saved Prompto from an MT lab years ago, when he was still just a baby. They were going to turn him into an MT, but I took him and brought him back to Insomnia. I’ve been keeping tabs on him over the years and believe me, he was never a threat to you. Never. When you two became friends, I was glad. So glad. It was surprising, but it was a welcomed surprise.’

Noctis was staring at him with a look that was threatening to break Cor’s heart. Maybe he shouldn’t have said all that. He shouldn’t have said anything. But to let the prince keep on thinking like that about his best friend was just too sad.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Noctis said, his voice breaking. ‘He was a spy. He was always watching me with that stupid smile on his face, mocking me. He was always taking pictures of everything, ugly pictures of me. He– he was always there whenever I needed him, like he knew my every move. Of course he would. He was fucking _spying_ on me!’ 

There was a loud clang as Noctis angrily banged his cuffed hands onto the table. He had lost his cool demeanor, like he was finally catching up with reality, finally realizing what he had actually done.

‘All these years, pretending to have fun playing video games with me, acting like he cared about me, treating me like I’m his real friend and not just some damn prince he was supposed to spy on. How dare he! How dare…’

A sob escaped the prince as he brought his trembling hands up to his face.

‘How dare he said he didn’t regret being friends with me… when I buried the knife through his heart… How dare he died with a smile on his face… How dare he…’

Cor watched silently as the broken prince cry behind his bloodied hands, his hunched shoulders shaking violently.

‘He needed to die… He was a Niff spy so he needed to die…’

Noctis kept repeating those words like a mantra between shuddering sobs. It was probably the only way for him to rationalize his actions, or maybe those were the only words that could comfort him.

Cor stood up, the metal chair scraping the floor.

There were still so many things he didn’t understand. So many things he needed to ask. Why was the prince so paranoid? Had he been this paranoid all this while and no one seemed to pick up on it? How did he know about the MT barcodes?

He wanted answers but seeing Noctis like this, he realized he just wanted to give the boy a hug.

But he didn’t do that.

Cor left the interrogation room quietly and let the crying prince be, alone in his grief of killing his own best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
